LongTomH
LongTomH's JournalKansas City takes on Citizens United
KC Move to Amend is the Kansas City chapter of Move to Amend. Over the last few weeks we've been circulating petitions in Kansas City, Mo with the following language:We, the undersigned residents of Kansas City, Missouri, urge the Kansas City, Missouri City Council to pass the following resolution:
RESOLVED, the People of Kansas City, Missouri, stand with communities across the country to defend democracy from the corrupting effects of undue corporate power by amending the United States Constitution to establish that:
- Only human beings, not corporations, are endowed with constitutional rights, and
- Money is not speech, and therefore regulating political contributions and spending is not equivalent to limiting political speech."
Tomorrow, June 13, Kansas City Move to Amend (KCMTA) members will deliver copies of our petition, with over 3,000 signatures, to the KCMO City Council. We expect them to vote on the resolution Thursday, June 14. The actual resolution to be voted on by the KCMO City Council incorporates the above language from our petition, plus a lot of 'WHEREAS's to make it sound more official. Full text of the resolution HERE.
Here are some excerpts from the press release sent out by KC Move to Amend:
Amendment Needed to Overturn U.S. Supreme Courts Citizens United Ruling
Kansas City MO Citizens will hold a public Press Conference and hope to celebrate the City Councils approval of a resolution designed to curb corporate power in elections which is scheduled for a vote on June 14, 2012.
Read the rest of the press release on Tony's Kansas City blog.
KC Move to Amend is so confident of passage of the resolution that we're planning a celebration and press conference following the vote. For those in the Kansas City Metro area, come join us at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church, 4501 Walnut Street at 7:00PM Thursday, June14. There will be refreshments and live music by a local musician. Someone has already arranged for videotaping of the event for a YouTube video (I promise to post it here!).
We'll also be discussing where to go next. The current resolution is just for Kansas City, MO. There are other communities in the Kansas City Metro area on both sides of the Kansas / Missouri state line.
Someone is certainly going to ask: "What good does it do to have a resolution supporting a constitutional amendment from a city council? Certainly nice; but, it doesn't get the job done (of amending the Constitution)." That's certainly true; all we're asking for right now is a show of support from KC and the 200 other communities around the nation. The process of amending the Constitution has just started. It's going to be a long, long, uphill battle and we realize that.
For more information on Move to Amend, it's drive to amend the constitution and the issues involved, go to the Frequently Asked Questions page on the Move to Amend website; also check out their links. Find out if there's a Move to Amend chapter near you; if not, start one.
Rachel Maddow's talk in Kansas City Sunday
I was part of the sellout crowd to hear Rachel Maddow's talk in Kansas City Sunday, April 22. I'd already bought a ticket, so I stayed outside with volunteers for the KC Move to Amend petition drive until shortly before Rachel's appearance.
Rachel was introduced by Vivian Jennings of Rainy Day books, the Kansas City independent bookstore that brought Rachel to KC to promote her book: Drift: The Unmooring of America's Military Power. The presentation was a back and forth, Q&A session between Ms. Jennings and Rachel.
Rachel of course was brilliant, informed, insightful and wonderfully witty. The subject of her book was American military power and its misuse and that was the major theme of her talk.
Rachel was careful to emphasize that: "Liberals care about national security," as much as conservatives, even if the conservatives have dominated the dialogue for the last 30 or 40 years. She was also careful to emphasize that we should not make the mistake of: "conflating opinions on the war with support for the troops." As Rachel pointed out, PEW center surveys of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans show a majority thought the wars were unnecessary.
She went back to the founding of our country to discuss the traditional American reluctance to allow one individual to take us to war. The Constitution reserved the power to declare war to the Congress, not the president. This was long before "The Imperial Presidency" and "The Unitary Executive." Sadly, "Congress has never successfully stopped a president from going to war."
Rachel spent a lot of her talk discussing the ways that we have gotten away from the doctrine that only Congress can take us to war, from Vietnam to Iran-Contra to Dick Cheney and Iraq. She avoided calling any of this a "conspiracy theory;" although, as she explained, conspiracy theories are sort of a hobby with her; she just doesn't resort to them as an explanation for our recent history.
She made some very insightful comments about the role of national security think tanks, such as The Committee on the Present Danger, in managing public perception of the need for military action. According to Rachel, conservatives invented the idea of defense think tanks and, when Liberals try to set up similar think tanks: "They are playing on someone else's field!" The same thing goes for talk radio.
Ms. Jennings asked Rachel to comment on Kansas and Missouri politics. Rachel replied (and I'm paraphrasing) that the Democratic Party has not really moved in recent decades; but the Republican party just keeps shifting rightward. She described watching Republican conservative politics as being like watching "ping-pong on fast-forward."
She says Kansas Governor Sam Brownback is one of the "top 3 most radical governors" in the nation; but, nobody nationally pays much attention because Kansas "has always been this way," as opposed to Wisconsin, where Scott Walker represents a major political shift. Rachel remarked on Brownback's comments that he wanted to "take the tax code behind the wood shed and kill it with a dull axe," always said with a big grin. She was a little stunned by this idea that he not only wanted to kill something; but, to prolong the agony and the dying process.
As for Kansas Secretary of State, Kris Kobach, she described him as "Kansas Chief Republican export," for his role in helping to frame the debate on immigration laws.
Rachel made an off-the-cuff remark about the question she's frequently asked about which RW talking head she'd least like to be "stuck on an elevator for 4 hourse with:" Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly or Rush Limbaugh. Her comment was that, instead of viewing this as 4 hours that she'd have to endure, she views it as her opportunity to make them endure her. As for who, she says Rush Limbaugh, so she could ask him how he invented talk radio and what she could learn - to help liberals replicate his success.
What's really at stake in this election?
There are a number of themes to this year's election cycle: The Republican war on women's rights; their war on the poor (from raising taxes on the poorest while cutting for the richest and denying them the benefits they need to survive!), to the very survival of Social Security and Medicare. Here's another issue that's rarely stated: The Republican need to crush, absolutely and ruthlessly, any vestige of dissent and any form of social revolution.
One of my old journal pieces linked the 1886 Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad Supreme Court Decision (which gifted us with the concept of 'corporate personhood) to the ruthless crushing of the Paris Commune of 1871:
The Paris Commune was an attempt to impose economic democracy on Paris, nearly 80 years after the original French Revolution. It was, of course, ruthlessly crushed, just as the Revolutions of 1848 were. But, the fact of the Paris Communal uprising frightened the elites in the United States (just as the original French Revolution had!). The Supreme Court's decision in Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad was a preemptive strike at any revolt in the US.
That's been a theme in Republican politics since Richard Nixon. For those old enough to remember, Nixon was elected by appealing to the 'Silent Majority' frightened by the civil rights movement, the women's liberation movement, the anti-war and the general youth revolt of the 1960s. The October Surprise of 1968, when Nixon's operatives convinced the North Vietnamese to walk away from the peace talks until after the election, played a part; but, generally Nixon appealed to a large segment of the populace, largely older, rural and white who were frightened by the upheavals of the 60s. This is, of course, largely the group that makes up the Tea Party.
Nixon and his GOP supporters in Congress defunded the Great Society programs from the JFK/LBJ years. Nixon used vice-president Spiro Agnew as his attack dog against the young demonstrators and the left in general. Anti-war demonstrators increasingly found themselves facing brutal attacks by police and sometimes soldiers, as in the Kent State massacre.
I'm old enough to remember the reactions of the older generation to this; they generally cheered on the National Guard. The consensus seemed to be that: "the students got what was coming to them." There were reports of parents telling their children: "If you were there, they should have shot you too!"
This counterrevolution was a continuing theme through the Reagan and Bush (both Bushes) administrations. John Ashcroft made the elimination of any vestige of the 60s revolution a theme throughout his senate campaigns, his bid for the Presidency and his term as Attorney General of the United States.
Now, we have a younger generation that wants change, when Mr. Obama, by and large, failed to deliver on the revolutionary change he promised, they took to the streets. They occupied Wall Street and the public parks in major cities around the country, even here in Kansas City. They've already faced brutal attacks from police in Oakland and elsewhere.
The GOP agenda now includes the destruction of a century of progressive progress; having crushed the Great Society, they're openly targeting the New Deal. The Ryan Budget revives 19th Century laissez faire and social darwinism. They can't accomplish this extremist agenda without crushing any movement calling for economic fairness and democracy, and Occupy is the most visible and effective movement out there.
Mitt Romney hasn't openly said: "Elect me and I'll get those dirty hippies!" But, we know that's part of his agenda, especially if his election brings in a new crop of Congressional Tea Party Republicans, as it probably would. He can't carry out that regressive agenda without ruthlessly crushing any opposition.
Admittedly, the Democratic party has often been a disappointment to those of us on the left; but, they're far better than the current regressive incarnation of the GOP. We may not accomplish much in the way of progress in this election (Although I have hopes for Elizabeth Warren and Alan Grayson); but, we must stop the rightward, regressive movement that threatens to crush any hope of change in this country.
Space Exploration and the culture of innovation: an interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson
http://blog.sfgate.com/tmiller/2012/03/28/space-exploration-and-the-culture-of-innovation-an-interview-with-neil-degrasse-tyson/In his latest book, Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier, Neil deGrasse Tyson contends that Americas golden age of space exploration in the 1960s fostered a culture of innovation that helped propel its leading edge economy. While the spinoff tech industries that NASA has directly or indirectly touched are impressive in their own right, Dr. Tyson believes the greatest value of space exploration lies in its capacity to inspire a nation to embrace science. This mindset drives an economic engine of innovation that creates high-skilled jobs as opposed to an economy that merely outsources cheap labor.
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Lets have a different attitude towards Earth. Lets create the Environmental Protection Agency 1970. Lets introduce auto emissions 1973. Lets put major changes in the Clean Air Act 1970. The Clean Water Act 1971. The Whole Earth Catalog 1968. The beginning of Doctors Without Borders 1970.
Where did the concept of without borders come from? No one had that concept until you saw Earth from space, illustrated not by a mapmaker whos color-coding political boundaries; its illustrated by nature itself and theres land, theres ocean, theres atmosphere.
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And we know why we made a difference in the 20th century and we ought to be able to prevent failure in the 21st century if we just study the problem even if only so briefly. So with regard to the comments about attending college, politicians will say what they feel they need to or want to I dont even think much about politicians. I think about the people in the audience who applaud the politicians. They are your fellow countrymen and theyre the ones you live with that should be who we target for education and enlightenment.
Because they would then not accept a statement by a presidential candidate that says that urging people to go to college is an act of snobbery. Now that being said, the educated elite is not without their own actual snobbery. And I kind of an anti-elitist in that regard.
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Dr. Tyson has made the most sophisticated defense of space exploration that I've seen to date!
Dr. Eric Drexler on the future of Nanotechnology
Way back in 1986, at a space development conference in Seattle, I first heard a young man by the name of K. Eric Drexler talk about some work he was doing on engineering on a molecular level; Eric labeled this new field: "Nanotechnology," engineering on a nanometer (billionth of a meter) scale. Since the word nanotechnology has been co-opted and everyone wants to label his project 'nanotechnology,' Eric has renamed his field: Molecular Nanotechnology or Atomically Precise Nanotechnology referring to the molecular scale and to the fact that it's atomically precise, where you know where each atom is going.
Eric is currently working and teaching at Oxford College in the UK, where he gave this talk on the future of nanotechnology:
A couple of years ago, I posted this journal post on molecular nanotechnology. I still recommend it for the resources it gives for anyone wishing to study the field.
Two paragraphs from that journal post still ring true:
My remark about "our present trajectory toward a world 'plutonomy,'" strike me as particularly relevant in considering Dr. Drexler's upcoming book: Radical Abundance. I recommend the book, when it becomes available; however I am concerned that the wealth produced by molecular nanotechnology will be captured by the 1% - the 'Plutonomy' I mentioned. That makes the success of the worldwide Occupy movements so critical, and why I want progressives to take back the discussion of our future.
Right now, the right tends to monopolize that discussion. Just do a Google search on: nanotechnology AND "Heritage Foundation."
I agree with a lot of the points you made in this thread; but. I'm still hopeful.
I heartily agree with you that JFK's space program was a unique opportunity to "beat our swords into plowshares." I made similar points in a post in General Discussion last month: "I remember when a Democratic president committed us to go to the moon. I got some good comments, but, a lot of negative responses; sadly it seems quite a few good liberals don't see the value in space exploration.
I agree that there are some disturbing trends, such as the turning away from peaceful space exploration, the dumbing down of our educational system and the dumbing down of our political discourse (Witness the recent GOP debates). However, there are hopeful counter-trends: a push back on many levels, against the abuses of power, the resurgence of liberal religion, and a neglected and often maligned Progressive Caucus in Congress. Maybe there's hope, even for the U.S.
If the U.S. doesn't lead the breakout into space, there's still China, Europe, even Russia. Have you heard that Russia has put out some feelers to Europe and even the U.S. on a cooperative lunar base for the late 2030s and beyond? The only disappointing thing in that is the timetable: In the 1960s we did it in less than a decade.
Getting back to the Wow Signal: There's another possibility that no one has mentioned yet; it's based on the fact that everything in the universe is in motion. That, of course includes the Earth and the hypothetical source of the Wow signal. Maybe the Earth briefly crossed the path of a communication between a two solar systems or between a starship and its home world.
Anyway, I think that it's worthwhile to keep searching. Dr. Jill Tartar of Seti has stated that, what we would get from First Contact would be the knowledge that another civilization survived its technological adolescence.
Are Co-ops the Future of Capitalism?
There's a fascinating article at Alternet.org: UN Declares 2012 The Year of The Co-op: Is This The Future of Capitalism?
The Industrial Age gave the us the giant, top-down, vertically-integrated corporations that concentrated wealth in the hands of a very few mega-rich and gave us two Gilded Ages (We're living in one now!). Now a new model of worker owned companies is challenging the big, top-down corporations.
<snip>
The next few paragraphs are a discussion of the growth of the modern co-op movement. There's also an invitation to start your own co-op:
The article goes on to discuss the role that legislation can play in encouraging the growth of co-ops, and the need for such legislation.
Co-ops can also have a major role to play in reducing poverty and inequality, as the workers of Mondragon, Spain proved when they started their own co-op:
Michael Moore, Jim Hightower, and the authors of The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Always Work Better have all spoken of the need for new forms of corporate control to reduce inequality. The growth of new technologies, such as 3-D printing and molecular nanotechnology may provide the opportunity for new business models. The egalitarian co-op may be the dominant model in our future.
Read the rest at the Alternet Visions section.
Paul Krugman tears Charles Murray a new one!
Charles Murray has made a career of cherry-picking data to tell the elites exactly what they want to hear. In Losing Ground: American Social Policy 19501980, he tried to say that money spent on welfare was actually hurting the people it was intended to help; in his most famous book: The Bell Curve he tried to prove, among other things, that social classes were inevitable because poor people had lower IQ's. His latest book: Coming Apart turns on the white working class that has formed the backbone of the Republican constituency since Nixon's southern strategy of 1968. Murray claims that the working class is suffering from a moral breakdown and that is what's causing their economic hardships.He's getting (and deserving) a lot of flack for his conclusions, one of the best smackdown's of Murray's psuedoscience comes from Professor Paul Krugman. Prof. Krugman has devoted a number of posts in his NY Times blog to refuting Murray.
Prof. Krugman begins in Blaming the Victims of Inequality to take Murray apart:
<snip>
In Wages and Values, Krugman takes on Murray's and others for bemoaning the "deteriorating values of working-class Americans:"
His last post on this, to date, is Different slopes for Different Folks, where he takes on Murray's insistence that lowered wages should not lead to a lowered incentive to work:
As Prof. Krugman says on another thread:
What if Obama loses? Must-read!
People here are telling each other that the GOP can't win, just can't win, really can't win in 2012. Johnathan Kohn at the New Republic begs to differ, and I think you need to read:
Sound familiar?
Kohn links over to the February issue of the Washington Monthly with the cover article: What if Obama Loses? with links to several articles by respected scholars on consequences of a GOP takeover.
Just some of those consequences would be:
- Repeal of the Affordable Care Act
- Gutting of the Environmental Protection Agency - ending any possibility of action on Global Warming
- Continued Conservative takeover of the courts
- Ending any effort to regulate the financial industry
- Have I mentioned a new war yet?
I know people are saying that: There's no enthusiasm for Mitt, and people won't vote for someone as bat-shit crazy as Newt or Santorum, and Obama will win in a landslide. But we have to face the facts:
- The GOP candidate will have half a billion dollars in his campaign piggy bank from the Kochs and others
- We're going to face more dirty tricks from voter disqualification to tampering with electronic vote counts
- The recovery, while real, is still shaky. Factors from the European economy to the price of gas could put us back in recession
A great comic actor, W.C.Fields, once said: "Time to take the bull by the horns and look the facts in the face!" It's time to face the possibility we might lose, and to buckle down to a hard fight, now until November.
Sara Robinson's New Rules for Radicals
I've been appalled at the way that discussion of the future has been dominated by conservatives and faux libertarians (Google on nanotechnology AND "Heritage Foundation" . Now a progressive site is getting into the futurist game: AlterNet has a new "Visions" section. One of the first articles is by Sara Robinson, a professional futurist and progressive.
Her first article for the AlterNet's new section is: New Rules for Radicals: 10 Ways To Spark Change in a Post-Occupy World. Her first rule:
This next rule is one that I think a lot of people on Democratic Underground need to read:
Anger is useful. It gets the blood moving. It gets people out of their chairs and into the streets. Harnessed quickly to constructive action, its the fuel that drives change. But anger, once generated, also cools and congeals quickly into frustration, cynicism and despair. Indulging in our daily two-minute hate may be cathartic, but ultimately, it doesnt change a damn thing about our situation. Even worse: it curdles, producing paralysis. Worst of all: once it starts festering, theres nothing left to do with it but turn it on each other.
Think she sounds too optimistic? Read the article. There's also a planned newsletter for the Visions section.
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